Dear Eugene

Dear Eugene, I feel too weary to write, but still I shall. You've written much about this, how when we use things and people for the usefulness we find in them, it is an act of desecration, dishonoring the very God who is the creator of all things and people, the Christ who fills all in all. This weekend I was talking to a lady who felt used by her manager, even though she could understand and even tried to be understanding about how her manager was in turn used by her superior who also has to answer to the demand of some higher-up nameless force.  A few hours before that conversation, a church lady called my cell (instead of sending a text, which is more courteous and discrete especially on a Sunday) and asked where my son was, only for me to realize later that she was really interested in the whereabouts of her own son and not mine.  The day before that when I was serving in the church café someone came up to me and made a demand in a manner even more ungracious t...

Dear Eugene, It's been a weekend like what John declares at the end of his account of Jesus' life, that if everything happened were to be written down, "I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." I am sure people today could and would object this way: Well, it's only thirty-plus years on earth, narrowly focused on no more than three; if a camera is to fixate its lens on Jesus for the whole time, it would not yield more than a thousand days of footage, hardly what one would call filling the "whole world." How technology and "knowledge" has shriveled our imagination, that we can only think in a straight line, and the most boring one at that! Of the many suggestions John might have made, one has to be Jesus' life can hardly be reduced to the narrative strands John has propose, as variegated and far-reaching as they are. Well, that's the kind of weekend I just had.  I am too drain...

Dear Eugene, Last night I had a strange dream. In the dream, J. I. Packer was thumbing through a Bible, while mumbling and grumbling, "Here we go again, N. T. Wright, undermining justification, saying this and that, blah blah blah...The Bible clearly says here--wait, I will find it ( thumbing violently through the pages )--but the Bible says...here the Bible says--wait, almost got it..." Of course that ain't the real Packer, though it might be the right Wright (from the fake Packer's perspective).  In real life Packer does not need to thumb through the Bible violently to find his proof text.  In real life, despite their serious disagreement in even some crucial doctrines , Packer proclaims, "Brilliant Bishop Wright is one of God’s best gifts to our decaying Western church..."  Here are two great Christians, great human beings showing us how God's family members disagree--even "fight"--in the Spirit, in the name of Christ, for the sake of ...

Dear Eugene, This past weekend I've been busy spamming my friends new and old to tell them about a new study Bible :) As I was writing the email to them, I realized how far you have taken and accompanied me on my life journey and how grateful I am every step of the way on The Way.  The truth is I would not have written an email like this if not for a pastor like you. I shall continue to multiply your faithfulness. Here is the email I wrote to them: Dear friends, If you are receiving this email, you are either in my Small Group, and/or my Book Club, or just a friend that I know who cares about reading God's Word and living in history-- His-Story . Recently I've been sharing with many of you how grateful I am for a new Study Bible that Zondervan publishes since last August, the  NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible . In this  LINK  you will find information about it, a video introduction, and also a "Preview" sampler. I  encourage you to...

Dear Eugene, Years ago during his elementary school years one day my son announced to the family My friend is from Nineveh! You mean the city in the Jonah story? He answered in his typical way, then and now , Yes, like, literally. Who could blame him?  This friend got into fights, went to the Principal's office, like, everyday, and was known to be a Huckleberry Finn, only having not even a town drunk of a father, transit hopping by himself younger than any kid I know.  So he fits the bill to play the citizen of Nineveh.  On a few occasions when my son needed to be at school very early, I would see the boy's lonesome figure half-heartedly shooting hoops in the rain, his bicycle the only tired spectator, lying on the puddled gravel, not even looking his way. I am not too sure , I said.  He doesn't look Assyrian to me. But he told me so!  He goes to church too and he said that's it. Well... So for a while I went along.  On a handful of occ...

Dear Eugene, Your biggest fans are in Vancouver now , ready to rock the city. "We always had a thing with Canada in general, but Vancouver has been very, very welcoming of us at a time when we we’re very fragile," Bono commented on why they choose Vancouver to kick off their tour. "Because you get quite vulnerable when you are preparing to launch a tour. And I know that sounds odd, but there is a level of nausea, and sort of, you feel ill in the pit in your stomach. It’s a really anxious time… Here in this city we feel very free. And I like to get out of the city and I go wandering, I go cycling, I get lost around here, and I like getting lost in B.C." It's amazing how, after all these years and so many concerts, someone as big as U2 would still not only feel small but acknowledge their smallness. "Here in this city we feel very free."  I wonder if we Vancouverites know what Bono meant.  We are so used to this freedom that a sense of proportion...

Dear Eugene, I haven't been writing to you for about a week now.  Whatz up with me?  Reading theology.  Serious hardcore reading. After all these years I am still in two minds about theology, whether it is the most fascinating science or biggest mind-numbing bore, especially when it has the tendency to be both simultaneously.  This morning at eight I swore I couldn't possibly squeeze another word of theology into my numbed-out brain, but lo and behold, a sentence into it there I was again carried away to la la land... Why do I read theology?  I have enough stuffs in my head.  There really is no reason to open cans of worms.  If not because God calls me to care for others, my family, my small group members, non-believers I meet in my volunteering, etc., there really is absolutely no reason. Theology is fascinating not because it works my brain up but because it calls me to work my heart out. Everyday I go by what you taught me: "PASTORAL WOR...

Dear Eugene, I am quite conscious of the nutritional content of breakfast I feed my kids.  The other two meals we take what mom serves, but breakfast is what I fix and as with everything else I plan not to fail. Pinhead oats at least twice a week, which my son hates and for the longest time could not resist to cheat and off-load a spoonful or two to his sister's share before she sat down.  Only once did she divulge to me the long injustice she was suffering, with an ambiguous redness around one of her eye sockets.  Her usual matter-of-factness in laying bare an obvious truth renders my indignation either too late or overly dramatic, which I had still succumbed to.   There's oatmeal on the top layer of banana , I am sure my son thought of that but got lazy after a few quick wins. Ever since they were young I'd tell my kids how the pinhead oatmeal--"steel-cut" they market it--is like a broom of fiber sweeping scum and grease, ragtag and bobtail out of the se...

Dear Eugene, This morning I read in the news: Facebook helped advertisers target teens who feel "worthless ". And I wrote the following to my children: So this is the world that you are living in. The champion of anti-bullying big corporations are themselves the biggest perpetrators of exploitation. Of course, as Leonard Cohen says, "Everybody knows" already anyway. Every corporation on TV or the internet is out to exploit, especially the vulnerable ones, because it is easy money. If they are really smart, they could even position their exploitation and convince the world they are doing something good for the vulnerable, giving them a helping hand to come in from the cold. Make huge money and then crown themselves the messiah; wouldn't it be nice? (Heck, they might even enlist you to join their justice campaign.) My questions for you are: Before we talk about someone else, how do we conduct ourselves on the internet or in person? Do we also choo...

Dear Eugene, How are you this morning?  I wonder if are ever agitated over nothing, like, even now? You know how sometimes the heart is like a beast that refuses to stay down.  And what's the rumpus?  Nothing, just a little tweety bird that I can't stand to see it stand on a branch that does not even have my name on it.   If the tweety bird would just go away, then world peace can be restored... One doesn't need to know the reasonableness of God's existence or his attributes or even his actions before acknowledging it really isn't reasonable to let a little trouble cloud up our whole being and assume someone or something is to blame for the restlessness and Why not God?  Like sure he can do something about the world, and why not this , this very little tweety that I so detest for no strong reason?   It doesn't take too much to please me, really... "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."  The...